July 5, 2017

CNN is not publishing "HanA**holeSolo's" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.

CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change....

So the human being behind the ridiculous pseudonym HanA**holeSolo should cringe for the rest of his life and never publish anything that CNN could possibly deem "bigoted" or "racist" because it would trigger CNN's delusional duty to destroy him.

Absolutely despicable.

This person is a nonentity. We shouldn't even have heard about him in the first place. Who cares who originally posted the video clip of the CNN logo stuck on the face of the guy Trump was wrestling? Trump passed along the clip the way most of us pass things along, by deciding we like that one thing. We don't search for who started it and then all the other things that person has said or done.

That furrow was plowed earlier by the Ohio bureaucrat who took it upon herself to try to deatroy Joe the plumber, and the Executive Branch who did a number on Nacoula Nacoula. It's now the media's turn.

Naturally, the hashtag #CNNblackmail is exploding on Twitter, but could this behavior by CNN actually be actionable, federally punishable blackmail? Not the separate elements of tracking down or doxxing the kid or suing him for something, but rather the formal statement of tying exposing him to his variable behavior?

For example, it's not illegal for me to have photos of you cheating on your spouse. I believe it is illegal and a federal crime, however, of threatening to publish those photos on a blog if you do not comply with some demand I make of you (fetch me a coffee, address me as "Mr. Hennesey, My Lord", etc.).

They learn these tactics in college where the administrators are "amenable authorities." The justification is that you have the right to free speech, but "speech has consequences."

In practice this means that they shut you up with the threat of ostracism, loss of job, and the possibility of physical violence. It never occurs that the same could be done to them because they figure the authorities have their back. And that their opponents are to "principled" to retaliate in kind. Up to now that's been true. But, the worm is starting to turn.

Yes this is almost as bad as what happened to the reporter who discovered this source, Jared Yates Sexton, who has received death treats to him and his family and now is concerned about his safety-- look at the back story on this.

Mind numbingly stupid move, if only from a PR standpoint--this was all over Twitter this morning.I checked Reddit and they had 3 different posts on the front page about this. It was disheartening to see how many people on Reddit were defending CNN, but the general consensus was against the network's action. For the people taking CNN's side the argument seems to be that if you express racist or sexist or homophobic opinions anywhere, even behind a mask, you deserve whatever punishment you get, up to and including being outed by CNN (and subsequently fired, publicly harassed, etc). Ugly expression = get that guy, ethics be damned.

Check out Andrew Kaczynski's own Twitter posts: at one point he says the poster apologized before CNN contacted him or published their story, but in another he says/brags that the poster deleted his posts and apologized only after CNN contacted him. Even on that point they can't get their story straight.

Isn't it nuts what kind of investigatory power the Media can bring to bear when they want to? I mean, these people haven't found any hard evidence of Russian collusion, but they sure tracked this one redditor down quickly!

Remember when it was a story in the alt-Media that the guy who ran Hillary's email system/her IT guy posted to Reddit asking for advice on altering or deleting logs? I don't remember CNN running that story or following up much on that.

"This person is a nonentity. We shouldn't even have heard about him in the first place. Who cares who originally posted the video clip of the CNN logo stuck on the face of the guy Trump was wrestling?"

Poor Chuck. Why it's almost like a massive media corporation is launching an attack on him for something he wrote, and instead of standing up for him everyone is taking the chance to attack the right instead.

Doxxing is another one of those things that's wrong only when it's done against the wrong people. People are entitled to anonymity only when they're the right people.

I mean, the "antifa" people beating people in the streets, right? They all wear masks. CNN doesn't do much to track down their identities, as far as I know. The university instructor who used a bike lock to viciously assault someone? His identity was first uncovered by people on 4chan...the Media didn't take much of an interest.

Anyway if the new standard is "people who say or do bad things in public deserve to get doxxed and get national media exposure" then let's go. When some person the Left finds sympathetic is "attacked" by the "digital mob" next time I don't want to hear a word about it--if this is the new normal the Left and Media had better buckle the fuck up.

It seems blindingly obvious to me that Spicey was asked something like this: Sean, that video posted by the President looks like something we found that originated on Reddit. And the guy who pseudonymously created it looks like a vaguely, or not so vaguely anti-Semitic, racist, Trump supporter. Based on his other posts. So we are asking; was the President's posted video that same video, and did the President and your office know about that provenance before it was posted?

And if Sean Spicer's only response to that was the oblique "It didn't come from Reddit," then shame on him and Trump and the entire communications staff.

This seems remarkably disingenuous coming from a "Lifelong Republican" who craves attention and makes extremely vulgar personal attacks on others (such as yours truly). Note that I have never responded to your personal attacks in kind.

The left has reached the point where they have advanced as far as is possible in a democratic republic operating under a constitution and the rule of law. The next steps for the left involve coercion, force, violence and lawlessness, which we are already seeing (CNN, Antifa, BLM...). The future of the progressive movement will look like Stalin’s Russia (complete with Pravda) or Mao’s China.

Michael K said..."...this is almost as bad as what happened to the reporter who discovered this source, Jared Yates Sexton..."

Is that the name of the CNN employee who went after this kid and threatened to Dox him ?

Actually, Michael K, no.

Jared Sexton is a reporter (not CNN) who discovered the true provenance of the video and reported it. He did not threaten to dox anybody. Sexton is a New York Times contributor and assistant professor of creative writing at Georgia Southern University

Did CNN ever figure out out their employee Donna Brazile came to have the debate questions she leaked to Hillary Clinton? The last I heard was that Brazile admitted giving the questions to Clinton, but that CNN still didn't know how she got the questions in the first place.

I mean, since they have this crackerjack group of investigative journalists you'd think they could have worked that about by now.

Here is what social media does to the brain as NPR tweeted out the Declaration of Independence and "Some supporters of President Donald Trump didn’t recognize one of the nation’s founding documents and accused the broadcaster of inciting violence and even revolution." Yes and CNN doing its job on reporting about HanA..Solo as about as shocking as Trump unleashing an attack on Chuck Jones, also a private citizen. Yet the right wing threats against Sexton continue. Really lets get a grip on this spectacle of teetering and shrink it down to the delete button.

This person is a nonentity. We shouldn't even have heard about him in the place.

He created a clever meme. He deserved to have his reddit username credited with the video. (I may be biased in thinking this because I have the sense of humor of a middle-schooler and like the idea of CNN and other news organizations saying the name, HanAssholeSolo.)

The reports I've seen have taken some of his posts out of context. It's harder to detect sarcasm and hyperbole without knowing the rest of the conversation.

roesch/voltaire said...Yes this is almost as bad as what happened to the reporter who discovered this source, Jared Yates Sexton, who has received death treats to him and his family and now is concerned about his safety-- look at the back story on this.

7/5/17, 8:59 AM

Discovered? The username of the redditor was never a secret. I haven't read what the reporter wrote about it, is the reaction just because he published the username or is it because he made assumptions/accusations about the character of the redditor?

As for CNN, on the one hand, it's nice to find out that they can actually research a story, on the other hand, doxing is bad.

But I know it's bad for Trump, when Trump's supporters attack me personally instead of dealing with substance

Actually Chuck...we are doing both. We dealt with the substance...CNN is evil and biased. Then you arrived to save the day, and now we have to deal with your attempts to divert attention from Lefties acting badly by attacking the Right. Again.

Just wondering, but are lots of LifeLongRepublicans stepping up to defend CNN on this one?I mean, a nice centrist like Professor Althouse can see that CNN is acting in a despicable manner. You'd think the only people who would defend CNN would be pretty hard-Left people...the kind of people for whom attacking the Right and/or Trump means more than any other principle. I say that 'cause I've seen even some Left-leaning people condemn CNN on Twitter, so it's not strictly a partisan thing.

The thin reed of an argument CNN and LifeLongRepublican defenders of CNN stand on is that by publicizing the .gif this guy created President Trump must have been aware of the guy's stance, his posting history, his core beliefs, etc, and that Trump's tweeting this guy's gif means Trump is endorsing those views. If someone sent the .gif to the President or someone the President knew (who sent it to Trump) then Trump would not have "got it" from Reddit...which is pretty obvious. The whole argument is obvious horseshit and a clear attempt to smear Trump and intimidate the .gif creator.

It's also, of course, wholly hypocritical for people who always argue that I'm supposed to separate the artist from the art! That's the Left's line, and the Media line, anytime some prominent "artist" is found to be a terrible person, or a criminal, etc. "Sure Hollywood gave child rapist Polanski a standing ovation, but we were celebrating his ART, not him!"Well here we have the Media putting a lot of effort into getting the personal details of the person who created this particular piece of "art" and doing everything they can to make President Trump guilty by association just for publicizing that art.

Anyway I'm glad I check the Althouse comments--it's literally the only place so far I've seen any LifeLongRepublicans defending CNN on this one (including several prominent NeverTrump people).

"So the human being behind the ridiculous pseudonym HanA**holeSolo should cringe for the rest of his life and never publish anything that CNN could possibly deem "bigoted" or "racist" it would trigger CNN's delusional duty to destroy him."

You guys are all confused 'cause the wrong ox got gored. The right to free speech has never meant the right to anonymous speech. The fact is, the people responsible for this are all you supposed conservatives who pile on whenever the Left calls anyone "racist" or "bigoted". What this guy is being threatened with is contempt and abuse at the hands of people like yourselves.

They are in 'fortress' mode (Sorry. There is a better phrase but I can't remember it). They are feeling a great deal of public pressure and for once, THEY are the story...and they do not like that level of scrutiny one bit.

That being said, this is pretty despicable thing to do and they should suffer for this. They are abusing their power as much as Trump is hypothetically abusing his...by sending out tweets and saying mean things to them. What horrible abuse!

CNN has destroyed so much of their good will and credibility this last year, it's sad. We need a strong and objective media and they are no longer it.

"I mean, these people haven't found any hard evidence of Russian collusion, but they sure tracked this one redditor down quickly!"

-- Reddit Admins are not exactly to be trusted; they routinely out/suppress people at their whim, including the one Reddit Admin who went about changing users' posts to insult them. It is one of the reasons I only very rarely post on Reddit, and only about non-important things, because while the communities there are often great, they are, frankly, overseen by people I do not trust.

Did Althouse see the video of CNN's Camerota doubling down on the doxxing this morning, saying the videomaker's fearful apology was "a glimmer of hope!" Even Chris Cuomo cringed at her attempt at spin.

-- To be fair to Chuck, I've disagreed with him often and frequently, and I've never been on the receiving end of any of his vulgar personal attacks. Honestly, I think if most people stopped attacking him, some of that Lifelong Republican might show through more instead of the constant defensiveness. Or not. Who knows?

Chuck, did you ever read about Beatrice Webb. She was one of the founders of the British Labor Party and the London School of Economics. She visited the White Sea Canal site in the Soviet Union. Russians dressed in street clothes and equipped with garden tools were sent out in the dead of winter to dig the canal. Thousands perished. Webb witnessed the event and thought it was absolutely fabulous to see so many people overcoming their bourgeoise prejudices and participating in the revolution. I've always wondered about the dynamics of Webb's observations and decisions. I feel certain that if Chuck researched this he could give a complete explanation of how this happened.

Before this thread decends into back and forth between individual commenters, I want to reemphasize Althouse statement that this person is a nobody (nonentity is a little too dismissive for my taste). The politics of personal destruction go back at least to the Clinton administration. The common thread in all the cases is that the targets at the time of their targeting were nobodies or at least relative nobodies. They would have continued in that state if not for someone, organization, or governmental representative seeking them for the express purpose of exposing, coercing, and/or destroying them.

My take on the current situation is questioning why the original source of the gif is considered newsworthy in the first place. Clearly, wanting to present a human interest story had nothing to do with the motive for the search. So absent that, why is this person legitimate news. The news story is a corrupt attempt at personal destruction. Arguing over the side issues - did Spicer "lie," ginning up sympathy for the despicable reporter - is ephemeral and misses the big picture.

I wonder if The New Yorker will feature the CNN logo on their cover. Perhaps the CNN logo with the face of an Ass sitting in a Water Closet... with a Deep Plunger stuck to the face of an Ass attached to the CNN logo.

But I know it's bad for Trump, when Trump's supporters attack me personally instead of dealing with substance.

Dumber and dumber! CNN managed to turn this "bodyslam .gif" story against themselves. The consensus was that Trump should not have sent the tweet, and opinions ranged from "it was funny but not really Presidential" to "it was a direct physical threat to journalists and should be investigated." Some very pro-Trump people defended the tweet as a good idea but they were decidedly in the minority. People were on CNN's side!Now, though, CNN is threatening a civilian--a private individual who presumably wanted to remain anonymous and has no direct relationship with the President nor anyone else in power. An individual who may in fact be a kid! Everyone's lining up to shame CNN for this awful behavior and decisions...and a LifeLongRepublican somehow concludes that means "it's bad for Trump." How stupid can people get?

And if Sean Spicer's only response to that was the oblique "It didn't come from Reddit,"

So assuming your version of the question is correct, Sean was supposed to say, "I don't know anything about all the Reddit stuff you're asking about but it didn't come from Reddit"?

He must first disavow the premise and then state the source, rather than simply state that the source of the video to the President was not from Reddit and then move on?

I clearly see no difference there. I guess the better response from the President's spokesperson would be:

"Gee, that's a good question. We didn't get the video from Reddit because we have better things to do that cruse website chat rooms all day. Someone sent us the video.

If you're very concerned about whether it's the same one posted on Reddit - or hundreds if not thousands of other websites which now host video - I suppose we could find someone around here with a logon, have them do some research about what's posted on the site, and have them pass what they find to a crack CIA forensic team to analyze whether it exactly matches, pixel for pixel, what the President Tweeted.

I suppose we could do that. But we have North Korea to deal with and this seems more like a "media with their heads stuck up their own asses" kind of job.

Michael K said......Chuck, I had no idea who this guy is. You and R/V seem determined to propose him for sainthood. ...

I never proposed him for sainthood. Don't make up bullshit like that.

You claimed that Sexton was doxxing the guy. He wasn't. He made no attempt to dox the guy. Sexton did three things:1. I.D.'d the provenance of the video. (Which Sean Spicer then bewilderingly denied, which is now another good story.)2. Found other video by the anonymous Redditor, revealing him as a guy who posted some crazy anti-Semitic shit, and other nasty shit.3. Reported it.

The sad thing is that everyone associated with CNN (and by that I mean the lovely Robin Meade, who is a sweet heart) will be tarred with the same brush even though they had exactly NOTHING to do with this decision.

I wonder how long before some of their own people will start asking some hard PUBLIC questions about what is happening over there?

There is a precedent for this proactive action. It was not long ago that a mean video inspired an elective war, an elective regime change, catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform, and a few dead Americans. Who knows what mischief the CNN logo could inspire.

"The right to free speech has never meant the right to anonymous speech."

-- No. It has *always* meant that. That's why so many things were written anonymously in the lead up, and following, independence. In fact, anonymous letter writing to newspapers was a well-honed craft and tradition in both Europe and America.

That's why so many things were written anonymously in the lead up, and following, independence. In fact, anonymous letter writing to newspapers was a well-honed craft and tradition in both Europe and America.

Exactly! That's why freedom of the (printing) press was included - so as to protect anonymous speech.

1. I.D.'d the provenance of the video. (Which Sean Spicer then bewilderingly denied, which is now another good story.)2. Found other video by the anonymous Redditor, revealing him as a guy who posted some crazy anti-Semitic shit, and other nasty shit.3. Reported it.

I'm glad to see you agree with me even if you deny it. Why did he "go after" the anonymous redditor" when the clip was from Trump?

Hey, remember when CNN did the research to find Louise Rosealma (antifa protester who threw bottles at people) and Eric Clanton (antifa protester who hit people with a bicycle lock)? That was some great investigative journalism!

Oh, wait, that wasn't CNN that found these people, it was 4chan. Finding violent criminals? Not their job. Finding some guy who made a meme dissing them? They're on it!

We need to start asking all CNN personalities if they agree with CNN's decision to threaten this guy. That's their play when they want to push a story, right? Some Repub. says something stupid somewhere and every reporter asks every Repub. about it for weeks.

Ask Jake Tapper, ask Jim Acosta, ask Anderson Cooper: "Do you support CNN's threat to expose the identity of a private individual who created a .gif the President tweeted? Do you condone that type of behavior by large Media corporations?"

Not sure I follow you. The Supreme Court has been known, once in a while, to take some notice of the First Amendment. I am fairly certain that they have never said that the right to freedom of speech includes a right to speak anonymously. How would that work?

It's insane! The reddit user is, not surprisingly, a fifteen year old boy. Mr. Solo is a disturbed teenager from a troubled background. What happens if this boy commits suicide? A young woman was just convicted of manslaughter for pressuring her boyfriend to end his life with a series of texts and emails. And you know that CNN's communications with this child were absurdly aggressive. CNN's threats are now part of some personal injury lawyer's case file! How can CNN be so stupid? Sow the wind...

I do like the excellent apology. What a bright and manipulative child! Too bad he's an evil little sh*t. (I guess it would be hilarious if CNN crafted the apology.)

-- To be fair to Chuck, I've disagreed with him often and frequently, and I've never been on the receiving end of any of his vulgar personal attacks. Honestly, I think if most people stopped attacking him, some of that Lifelong Republican might show through more instead of the constant defensiveness. Or not. Who knows?

Matthew you are just about the best proof of the point you are making so very well.

You and I disagree often. You never personally attack me; I have zero reason to personally attack you.

You haven't called me "cuck."You haven't misquoted me.You haven't claimed that I am a paid operative for Soros/the Dems/some other lefty outlet.You haven't made the most vile -- beyond imagination -- comments about my mother.You haven't tried to smear me with regard to the basic undisputable facts about the Barron Trump story.You haven't trademarked "Lifelong Republican" as an epithet (that term being something I typed once or twice about a year ago, and which my detractors now use daily, to troll me).

You, Matthew, have amazingly found the key to civil discourse on Althouse comments pages; just don't do that shit. Props.

A good Photoshop or an animated GIF that people find funny spreads like wildfire across the Web. Digital files can be copied instantly and sent by email, posted at blogs that allow it, posted all over social media. It doesn't matter at all that it first appeared on Reddit. Trying to say that Spicer is lying is absolutely ridiculous. You don't have to go to the place where something is first posted to make a copy.

Not sure I follow you. The Supreme Court has been known, once in a while, to take some notice of the First Amendment. I am fairly certain that they have never said that the right to freedom of speech includes a right to speak anonymously. How would that work?

Wikipedia on McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission

"In striking down the law, the court considered some important reasons to allow anonymous speech that weighed in their decision.

Enhance authority - "Anonymity thereby provides a way for a writer who may be personally unpopular to ensure that readers will not prejudge her message simply because they do not like its proponent."Encourage open discourse - "The interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry."Safety from retaliation - "The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible."

I really don't understand why the video is such a big deal. It's just a dumb, crudely made Internet meme that depicts Trump beating up a guy (Vince McMahon) with the CNN logo as a head. CNN is offended by that, so much so that they're trying to silence the meme's creator? Really? The future must not below to those who slander the Prophet of Fake News.

I can only surmise that CNN told the guy that their coverage of him and his identity would be extensive and detailed (name, address, phone number, ditto for family members), and if a deranged person decided to do something bad to him, hey that's just a consequence of free speech.

I am guessing that most of the people expressing outrage about this incident do not believe there is a right to murder anonymously. If CNN had tracked down a murderer, they would be all for it. So, what they are saying is that expressing racism and bigotry are not the same as murder.

But the only punishment being threatened here is exposure. So what you are all saying, is "Stop Me Before I Lynch Again!". How dare CNN expose some poor nebbish to your scorn, contempt and ridicule? The nerve!

I mean, she straight out states that he's afraid of physical violence if they publish his personal info, and CNN is being gracious for agreeing not to do so. And she thinks this is going to be seen as a positive.

Any thinking person can only conclude that CNN is conspiring with a nod and a wink to the radical leftists to threaten everyone in the US who does not agree with their agenda. I recall reading something the other day about people attending a Trump rally having their car's license number recorded.

And, as my wife asked. How does the GIF hurt CNN? I replied I don't know. It seems to me that CNN benefited from Trump tweeting the gif.

Since CNN is basically now the bash Trump network, Trump bashing CNN is going to encourage people who hate Trump to watch CNN even more.

It's quite a problem that those who wish to control others keep running into the US Constitution. And it's quite interesting how they deal with those limits by denying them (anonymous speech is not protected!) and inventing things which supersede it (saying "racist" things makes those rights null and void).

You might stop and consider when you do that you've become exactly the kind of people the Founding Fathers created this country to avoid. They had a brand new country to set up and the first thing they did was write up a bunch of rules to keep the assholes from wrecking the place. It was the first thing they knew they had to do.

A bit reminiscent of CBS (Dan Rather, Mary Mapes) using a letter on TV that was supposed to show Bush Jr. didn't do his duty in the Texas National Guard. Early days of the internet: lots of savvy people, probably young, said: show us the actual letter, in close up. A bit slowly, CBS showed it. Almost instantaneously: that letter wasn't produced on a typewriter ca. 1970, it was produced on a computer somewhat later. Fake! Everyone at CBS obviously had no idea how to respond to specific factual questions about the document--they had given no thought at all to changes of technology. Worse, they had not done much old-fashioned digging into the person who gave or sold them the letter.Today, the boomers running CNN don't seem to understand social media. Thanks to their heavy-handed response, no doubt guided by many lawyers and other high-salary people, there are now thousands of videos in which the CNN logo is prominent, as bad as, or worse than, the original one from CNN's perspective. Fire hose of false news; the Acme company that Wile E. Coyote used to deal with, etc. Violation of New York State criminal law. CNN created a big problem for themselves by going crazy about a small problem. Among other things, Trump can laugh his ass off: his little re-tweet has brought about unimaginably good results for him. (Nod to Scott Adams)

Matthew:Sorry; now we have to add "Worthless cunt" to the list of epithets aimed at me. We may need a spreadsheet to keep up.

****COMMENTS ARE MODERATED some but not all of the time. This is for the purpose of excluding/removing a small handful of commenters who, I believe, intend to ruin this forum. They already know who they are. For everyone else, try to be responsive to the post, don't make personal attacks on other commenters, bring some substance or humor to the conversation, and don't do that thing of putting in a lot of extra line breaks. ****

The bodyslam .gif/.gif creator is close to a Milkshake Duck, isn't he?I mean, he wasn't exactly embraced by all, but most people found the .gif itself at least a little funny. The Media worked hard to uncover the creator's racist, sexist, wrongthink opinions, though, and to make sure everyone knew all about it, fast.

I am guessing that most of the people expressing outrage about this incident do not believe there is a right to murder anonymously

Are you seriously trying to equate creating an internet meme to murder? Seriously

But the only punishment being threatened here is exposure.

1) The fact that CNN is threatening any type of punishment is the problem.2) if you have been paying attention, you would realize just how dangerous such exposure can be to those exposed. Look at what happened to Justine Sacco the last person whose life Andrew Kaczynski attempted to ruin.

So what you are all saying, is "Stop Me Before I Lynch Again!".

No..we're saying stop the Left before they lynch again.

How dare CNN expose some poor nebbish to your scorn, contempt and ridicule? The nerve!

Leftists don't seem to understand what's happening to CNN. It's not that they made this mistake and that mistake, and it's not that the higher-ups at CNN approve these things; they don't. It's that they are so driven by hatred for Pres. Trump, they have lost their senses and their souls. These aren't mistakes, these are indicators that they no longer care about journalistic standards because there's a war on.Mr. Trump has created this meme, and CNN is working hard to verify it. They can't be a news organization if the average American believes this about them.

CNN loves anonymous sources. Note they have not outed any of their anonymous sources that told them classified information or information that turned to to be wrong. They have not publicly criticized them. They have not publicly written about any apology they extracted from them. They protect those people.But criticize *them* and they will hunt you down and threaten to expose you. They will tell America your sins if you don't behave for all of the future.

COMMENTS ARE MODERATED some but not all of the time. This is for the purpose of excluding/removing a small handful of commenters who, I believe, intend to ruin this forum. They already know who they are. For everyone else, try to be responsive to the post, don't make personal attacks on other commenters, bring some substance or humor to the conversation, and don't do that thing of putting in a lot of extra line breaks. ****

As usual Chuck focused on the distraction and missed the relevant section.

You have offend the great CNN by making an evil meme mocking our greatness. We have therefore released our hounds, tracked you down, and you are now under the all knowing eye of CNN. You SHALL come before us prostrate yourself, grovel, and give us a full throated apology to such a degree that we will be pleased. You shall then destroy your own works, rip them from the wall from which you have posted them and if you do not we shall put a pox on thee and further smite you with our great power by revealing your identity to our rabid masses who will stone you with with tweets, posts, phone calls and other intrusive gestures which shall make your life hell on earth. So it has been spoken, so it shall be.

This is a big deal for CNN as they live on their reputation to, mainly, present US news abroad. In the US they are a second tier player in the news business, but outside it they are the American BBC.

They are therefore an important part of the MSM axis that controls information. Note that outside the US there is much less use of secondary and alternative news sources. What CNN says is picked up by foreign language media as a matter of course, with all the bias and spin retained. There is little understanding of differences of opinion or conflict in the US.

If mockery of CNN becomes widespread this will be threatened. This will require the creation of an alternate gold-standard news source, or may open the world to investigating alternate opinions from the US.

Jupiter said...I am guessing that most of the people expressing outrage about this incident do not believe there is a right to murder anonymously. If CNN had tracked down a murderer, they would be all for it. So, what they are saying is that expressing racism and bigotry are not the same as murder.

But the only punishment being threatened here is exposure. So what you are all saying, is "Stop Me Before I Lynch Again!". How dare CNN expose some poor nebbish to your scorn, contempt and ridicule? The nerve!

CNN and other Media outlets have been insisting that Trump tweeting the funny .gif was unacceptable because it could rile pro-Trump folks up and cause violence against/harm to people in the Media.CNN and you now say that threatening to expose the identity of this private individual is not in any way a threat since it could in no way rile anti-Trump folks up and couldn't cause violence against the guy.

I mean, which is it?? We're not talking about highly paid/highly visible/powerful Media people here (public figures who exchange a certain degree of exposure and/or notoriety for fame and fortune), we're talking about some private individual. If expressing a negative opinion about a network is somehow a threat to the people who work at the network, how much more of a threat is exposing the identity of a private individual you've made well-known for pro-Trump work and unpopular/ugly beliefs?

To people who are saying this is about racism and bigotry: Do you support CNN hunting down everyone they've decided has written something racist or bigoted on the internet, and threaten to expose them if they again write something bad?

Gahrie, I am fully as deplorable as you are. Probably more so, since I am what Lefties and pious cucks are prone to call a racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic bigot.

And I certainly understand the value of being able to speak anonymously. My name isn't really Jupiter, and I don't live on Mt. Olympus. I know that loads of freedom-loving people like yourself would leap at the opportunity to destroy my life if they only knew my real name.

I am also aware of the long tradition of anonymous publication. But the right to publish anonymously is not the right to have that anonymity maintained. And CNN's threat would be utterly hollow if it weren't backed up by a vengeful mob.

To be fair to Chuck, I've disagreed with him often and frequently, and I've never been on the receiving end of any of his vulgar personal attacks. Honestly, I think if most people stopped attacking him, some of that Lifelong Republican might show through more instead of the constant defensiveness. Or not. Who knows?

I'm relatively new. I try not to personally attack anyone. I find Chuck hard to understand. He's a Lifelong Republican who can't say one nice thing about Trump.

For example Gorsuch. You'd think a LLR would be happy with Gorsuch. Chuck voted for Trump. Likes Gorsuch. But can't give one iota of credit to Trump for Gorsuch being on the court.

This makes no sense. You don't like Trump or Gorsuch, I get it. You like them both. I get it. You voted for Trump to get Gorsuch but you give Trump no credit for putting Gorsuch on the court? That's some serious ridiculousness that we have to wade through every day.

Unknown said...The Enquirer was going to be used by Trump as a vehicle to blackmail Mika and Joe. Why is this acceptable?

Nope; that story's fallen apart, too. Joe claimed to have evidence backing his version but for some strange reason has been unwilling to put it forward. The anonymous leaks say that Joe asked Kushner (or someone else w/in the Trump organization) to ask Trump to get the story squashed and Kushner said that Trump wasn't happy with Joe and that Joe'd have to apologize to Trump before Trump was likely to help. The sources say Trump didn't talk directly w/Joe about that request, at all. All of that means Trump's tweeted version of events is much closer to the truth, and there was no blackmail. The Enquirer went on the record that Trump never intervened one way or the other.

I mean, we run stories based on anonymous sources now, so we have to treat these sources the same...its must be true.

In any event, this insistence that anonymous speech is not protected is a non-issue in this case. Nobody is arguing that CNN violated the guy's free speech rights. They are arguing that CNN used its vast resources to intimidate a private citizen with ostracism and possible physical violence if he did not give into their demands for an abject apology and to never publish anything on the internet again that they might find objectionable.

Since this sort of thing is now standard on many universities, a lot of people on the left think it is perfectly acceptable behavior because RACISM, HOMOPHOBIA, ISLAMOPHOBIA, TRANSPHOBIA, SEXISM! Most normal people want to be able to have opinions that may not be one hundred percent in line with the latest leftist dogma and not have their houses and cars vandalized or lose their jobs. So they find this kind of behavior appalling. And that's were we are right now.

And to be clear, no-one in that company is driven by hatred of Trump, however they feel as individuals. Individuals dont come into it. CNN is a professionally, heirarchically run media operation, and everything they do is determined top-down.

Their editorial line is determined by the interests and strategic goals of their owners, which are rational and purposeful, not emotional.

'Ask Jake Tapper, ask Jim Acosta, ask Anderson Cooper: "Do you support CNN's threat to expose the identity of a private individual who created a .gif the President tweeted? Do you condone that type of behavior by large Media corporations?"'HD, you haven't fully assimilated the Alinsky playbook. You use it as a wedge against the other person. "Why hasn't such a person been fired yet? If you aren't in favor of firing them, doesn't that mean that you think, and CNN thinks, that this kind of thing isn't really that bad?" "Yes, but why haven't you _demanded_ that they be fired? Does that mean that you condone this behavior?" "A mistake?! I don't get you. This person threatened to expose the personal information of a 15-year-old boy! That's a mistake?! Where's your outrage?"

And the Supreme Court struck down a law banning anonymous political speech, as an unreasonable restriction of free speech. They did not affirm a law making it illegal to reveal the author of an anonymous tract. That would be protecting anonymity. And that would also be an unreasonable restriction of freedom of speech.

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise."

That's been attributed to Voltaire and some other less savory types, but wherever it came from, that is a resounding truth.

There is a corollary to it, however: Those who think they are above criticism and mockery are the ones who think they run things in a society, whether it's a church, the nobility, or any other class of parasite. What we are seeing here is a product of CNN and its surrounding "media class" delusions about their place in society and what the rest of us are supposed to be doing--Kowtowing to their positions as the de facto mandarin class of public arbiters.

Guess what? They aren't, and I do believe they are about to suffer an impact with the wall they've been running towards since at least the time of Watergate. It won't be pretty, but I'm going to enjoy walking by the starving homeless "jornolists", with their signs reading "Lost my job when CNN went bankrupt; will lie for food".

The funniest thing about this is that these people think they are somehow important, when all they really are is a bunch of chattering court jesters, who are in grave danger of reaching the end to their amusement value. Their employers, the American public, will likely shortly decide that they can get just as much good entertainment value from a bunch of 15 year-old boys with smartphones.

Anyone who thinks we aren't witnessing a profound historical moment here...? I think they're wrong. The media class is about to do what the French aristocracy did in the years before the Revolution. First, they beclown themselves; then, they render themselves irrelevant, and finally, they piss off the peasantry to the point where the peasants positively love the suggestion of implementing the guillotine. Figuratively, that's where we're headed with these idiots. Some few may survive the deluge, but along with the education majors, the journalism degreed out there are going to discover that their long misrule has consequences, and they're going to sink to the level of their actual contributions to society. Since those are few, expect both those professions to suffer some severe winnowing here in the next few generations, in terms of salary, prestige, and social respect.

Who cares who originally posted the video clip of the CNN logo stuck on the face of the guy Trump was wrestling? Trump passed along the clip the way most of us pass things along, by deciding we like that one thing.

@Althouse, Chuck is positively obsessed by it, and just skimming the comments it appears you can put roesch into the category of people who care about the source of the video. You might try explaining it again, because there's a three syllable word and some two syllable words in your paragraph, so it's hard for them to follow.

Kevin said......For example Gorsuch. You'd think a LLR would be happy with Gorsuch. Chuck voted for Trump. Likes Gorsuch. But can't give one iota of credit to Trump for Gorsuch being on the court....

I will happily give Trump one iota of credit for Justice Gorsuch. But since I now think that any Republican nominee would have beaten Hillary, I give 499 iotas of credit to Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society, and 500 iotas of credit to Mitch McConnell. Gorsuch, I truly think, was chosen entirely apart from Trump. Per the Federalist Society, I think Gorsuch would have been President Kasich's choice, or President Rubio's choice.

CWJ said...My take on the current situation is questioning why the original source of the gif is considered newsworthy in the first place. Clearly, wanting to present a human interest story had nothing to do with the motive for the search. So absent that, why is this person legitimate news.

Yep. What the hell did it matter who Joe the Plumber was? If the Media wanted to verify that he wasn't some hired gun/fake guy/political operative, fine. But after that, what does his personal life have to do with anything? Didn't matter then, doesn't matter now. If you're not someone the Left finds sympathetic the Media is all to happy to expose you to the Leftist mobs."Hey, you shouldn't have spoken up and taken the wrong side of the issue, man" is about the best you can hope for as an apology.

Dissent was patriotic there for a little while. Having outlandish, outrageous, or shocking opinions and beliefs is considered good...just as long as those beliefs comport with the Left's views. They're badthink otherwise, and people who engage in badthink aren't entitled to fair treatment--they're not really people: they're enemies. Private citizen? Too bad, enemy!

So, what they are saying is that expressing racism and bigotry are not the same as murder.

Murder is a clearly-defined crime, for which the accused is allowed a trained defense and rules of evidence followed by the necessity of a unanimous jury of one's peers.

Racism and bigotry are not clearly defined. The meanings of racism and bigotry today are clearly different than yesterday, and will be further revised as necessary to always maintain a sufficient supply of racists and bigots. It is a crime of definition and it will go on without end.

Those who charge racism and bigotry would never allow the protections given a murder suspect. It would throw a wrench into the whole totalitarian rule project they're so vigorously striving to complete for extra credit.

That’s right: a Senior Editor for CNN is blackmailing an American citizen for daring to criticize them.

This isn’t Kaczynski’s first attempt at destroying a private citizen’s life. As a BuzzFeed reporter, he gained notoriety for publicizing a lame joke Tweeted by a 30-year-old PR director named Justine Sacco. As Sacco was boarding a plane from London to Cape Town, South Africa, she poked fun at many people’s poor understanding of the continent. Kaczynski decided the joke was racist and helped gin up a digital lynch mob while she was in the air for 11 hours sans internet. By the time Sacco landed, she was mobbed by reporters, was fired from her job, and had to go into hiding.

There oughta be a law! Oh, right, there is. "Extortion is a criminal offense of obtaining money, property, or services from an individual or institution, through coercion." Getting them to keep quiet or say prescribed things is most definitely a service.

Well, at least they didn't write it down! Oh, right, they published on the Internet.

The Chicago Way. "That's a nice little personal privacy you have. It'd be a shame if something happened to it."

I think there is an assumption there that the Trump hater contingent is large and growing.

No, I don't think that at all. I think its more of the "the roll left and die" strategy identified by one Sarah Hoyt. If you are a lefty working in a dying company that is dying because you have gone to far to the left, the best strategy to get a new job is to go even harder to the left so that the failure won't be blamed on going to far left, since going to the left is the solution to all problems. By definition. Other leftists, seeing what a good leftist you are, will hire you to work at the organization they are currently working.

“At the beginning of June, we accurately reported a story that recounted the relationship between Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the truth of which is not in dispute. At no time did we threaten either Joe or Mika or their children in connection with our reporting on the story. We have no knowledge of any discussions between the White House and Joe and Mika about our story, and absolutely no involvement in those discussions.”

The system CNN works within has good reason to believe it runs things. Outing individuals is effective because other parts of the system are willing to serve as enforcers of the ostracism, and I dont mean the twitter mobs or random looneys. Its not about death threats or insults, its about careers and money.

Hiring managers, corporate management, contract agencies, even voluntary associations will do the enforcement.

The case of Brendan Eich is the example. If a valuable and accomplished figure like that, a founder of so much of the new economy, can be so diminished in reputation, nobody is safe from the system.

"Those who charge racism and bigotry would never allow the protections given a murder suspect. It would throw a wrench into the whole totalitarian rule project they're so vigorously striving to complete for extra credit."

Precisely! Fortunately for the Left, they don't need a complicated legal apparatus to destroy their victim. They simply make the accusation, simply shout the word, and a host of eat-me-last "conservatives" haul the poor wretch off to the stake.

"This makes no sense. You don't like Trump or Gorsuch, I get it. You like them both. I get it. You voted for Trump to get Gorsuch but you give Trump no credit for putting Gorsuch on the court"

That is why many of us don't believe that Chuck actually voted for Trump.

Many of us voted for Trump reluctantly and would have preferred another GOP nominee. We've since recognized that A. Trump is governing more conservatively than we thought he would and B. the Left's relentless hatred of him and desire to destroy him, nevermind the cost to the country, means a show of unity is important. You don't have to like everything Trump does. You don't even have to like him to recognize the forces arrayed against him are malevolent and anti-democratic. Chuck gives aid and comfort to the enemy.